On November 20, 1945, the International Military Tribunal against 24 high-ranking figures of Nazi Germany accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes began at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. The trial was presided over by British Judge Jeffrey Lawrence.
The idea of holding such a trial was expressed even before the victory over Nazi Germany. However, the agreement between the governments of the four victors of World War II (USSR, USA, Great Britain and France) on the prosecution and punishment of the main war criminals of European countries was signed only on August 8, 1945 following the London Conference. Luxembourg, Leipzig and Berlin, among others, were proposed as the place of the future court. However, the choice fell on Nuremberg, which had a large, bombed-out courthouse and prison.
The same agreement established the International Military Tribunal, which was empowered to try and punish those who committed or prepared war crimes, crimes against peace and humanity.
On August 29, 1945, a list of major war criminals was published, identified at the London Conference. It consisted of 24 Nazi politicians, military and ideologues of fascism. The list did not include Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Josef Goebbels, who committed suicide at the time.
The trial in Nuremberg lasted 10 months. During this time, more than 5,000 pieces of documentary evidence were examined, which gave rise to the sentencing of twenty-two major Nazi war criminals on October 1, 1946. Even before the trial, the chairman of the Labor Front, Robert Leigh, committed suicide. The chairman of the Friedrich Krupp concern, Gustav Krupp, was declared terminally ill and his case was suspended and then terminated with the death of the defendant.
The tribunal sentenced 12 major war criminals: Martin Bormann (in absentia), Hermann Goering, Fritz Sauckel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Alfred Jodl, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberk, Alfred Rosenberg, Wilhelm Frick, Hans Frank, Julius Streicher sentenced to death by hanging. On October 16, 1946, the sentence was carried out in the Nuremberg prison, the bodies of the hanged were burned, and the ashes were scattered. Some of the criminals were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.
The trial in Nuremberg identified new types of international crimes, which then became firmly entrenched in international law and the national law of many states. For the first time, officials responsible for planning, preparing and resolving wars were prosecuted, and military aggression was declared a crime against peace. The International Tribunal in Nuremberg promoted the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Declaration of Human Rights, and eventually became the model for the establishment of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
There is a unique exhibit in Museum "Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine" - a photo album dedicated to the Nuremberg Trials. It belonged to Colonel of Justice Arkady Samoilovich Lviv, who was an employee of the Soviet group for the preparation and conduct of the trial.
In the library of Museum "Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine" you can read the literature on the Nuremberg Trials:
- Alexandrov G.Nuremberg yesterday and today. M.:Politizdat, 1971. 168 p.
- Goreshina K., Rudenko R., Nikitchenko I. Nuremberg process. In 2 vol. М.:State Publishing House of Legal Liiterature, 1954.
- Hoffmann I. Nuremberg warns: Memoirs of the bodyguard of the chief prosecutor from the USSR R. Rudenko about the Nuremberg trial. Ed. 3rd, ext. Poltava, 2012. 376 p.
- The Nuremberg Trials. M., 1952. 832 p.
- Poltorak A.Nuremberg epilogue. Military memoirs M.: Voenizdat, 1965. 552 p.
- Raginsky M. Nuremberg: before the court of history. Memoirs of a participant in the Nuremberg Trials. M .: Politizdat, 1986. 207 p.
- Rudenko R. Nuremberg process. In 3-vol. M .: Yuridicheskaya literatura, 1965. http://library.tkuma.com/index.php?PGID=4&KNIGA_F=5348&RAY=0;